A Way Out
by Innocent Lamb
Summary: "Jean Grey; not enough courage to take the coward's way out. I did the hero thing, I took the hero's way out." An alternate explanation for the rift between Jean and Scott during the first and second movies. Jean's POV during X2.


**Many people have complained about how Jean and Scott appeared in the movies and have written various fanfictions in an attempt to explain the obvious rift between them. This is my explanation for it, inspired by these lines from the third chapter of Minisinoo's _Grail_: **

_"Jean didn't 'sacrifice' herself._

_She suicided."_

* * *

><p>Things had not been good between Scott and I for a while, and it had nothing to do with Logan. I use the term 'things' because I'm not sure if it can be narrowed down to some catalytic event in particular, or even at all. Familiarity breeds contempt, or so they say. But still, I'm not even certain that that was the case with us.<p>

I feel as if we just disintegrated, more so after he accepted my proposal of marriage. I had turned down his own proposals a number of times, for a number of different reasons. And as a result he had had to try harder, be more, _woo me. _Once marriage was assured, there was no need for romantic outings or candle-lit dinners or affirmations of our love. It was almost as if we were already married, and had been for years. The honeymoon was most definitely over.

I hadn't foreseen any of this, of course. The fear of this happening to us was not why I had put off engagement for so long. I didn't want to tease him or lead him on. I didn't want to be that woman who sat on her lover's back and dangled cake in front of his nose, holding it just out of reach, making him work for something that would never be his. That would have been far too cruel.

No, I loved Scott. I knew very well that we were forever. But... it just didn't _feel_ right to agree to his first proposal, or his second, or his third. I knew I was hurting him; breeding insecurities and anxieties about his performance as a lover, and as a boyfriend, and as a partner. I think some part of me desperately needed assurance that no matter what I did, he would be there for me regardless. He would still love me, regardless. And he was, he did. Even when I was drooling after Logan.

Logan was never the problem. Sure, he brought about more than his fair share of drama and conflicts, but the issues we had had manifested long before he arrived. In hindsight, he actually cured us, for a little while.

I was bored. So, so tired of routine. I have never been someone who can just sit and do the same thing every day, not for years. I like to feel my blood rushing through my veins, fueled by adrenalin and an undeniable yearning to survive. I need to feel _alive_. I like running; but most of all, I like to be _chased_.

There is nothing like the self-assurance, confidence and _power_ that comes with the knowledge that you are _desired_. With great power comes great responsibility, blah blah blah. I know, I know. But the way Logan followed me around the mansion, the way he _looked_ at me and _flirted_ with me... How could I have been anything but irresponsible?

It's not just the chase that I crave, but the _fight_. And having two very handsome grown men competing with each other for my undivided attention was downright thrilling.

Whenever he had a spare moment, Scott would be scattering rose petals over our bed (a pain to clean, really, but it's the thought that counts) and coming down to the lab with all sorts of delectable munchies and hands that had mastered the art of the foot massage many years ago. He would spoil me; even going so far as to offer to fulfil a few of my less mainstream sexual desires, though he had never previously been so readily willing to do that for me.

I knew exactly what he was trying to prove with all that, and I let him do it anyway. I didn't once tell him that he didn't _need_ to. I didn't once volunteer to put his worrying to rest.

On the other side of all that, there was Logan. Cool, calm and collected Logan, who in comparison made Scott look like an awkward young boy striving for the affection of a woman way out of his league. A woman who he desperately needed to love him in return, and who he never believed actually would.

Logan didn't rub my feet; though I'm positive those calluses on his hands and the adamantium in his bone would have made for quite the massage. Logan didn't dip strawberries in chocolate and show up late for his math classes just so he could feed them to me. Logan didn't promise me anything sexual, at least not in so many words. Oh, there were suggestions and implications of course, but nothing solid. And he didn't wear that desperate, panicked expression of someone who believes that they're about to be left. Scott needs to be needed as much as I want to be wanted.

Logan would flirt with me and stare at my mouth while he did. I could feel his eyes on my rear every time I turned around within his sight. Those dark, smouldering eyes that just seemed to _know_.

Eyes I wished over and over again I could see on Scott. But the universe could never be so kind.

In the wake of Logan's departure the mansion was left with two broken hearts, but neither was mine. No, my heart had been healed and was left thudding in my chest every time I looked at Scott. The man who would do anything for me. To make it worse, his careful, loving ministrations did not cease the day Logan ran out; maybe to prove to himself – and me – that that was not his reason for treating me like a queen.

Either way, it was some months before we started fighting. And it wasn't just slam-the-bedroom-door go-sleep-on-the-couch you-forgot-to-fill-up-the-car fighting, either. This was screaming-so-loud-our-throats-will-be-raw-for-days-afterward fighting, the type where we were both so angry that my uncontrolled telekinesis would shake the furniture and he would need to stop me mid-insult to fuck my brains out on the floor or stomp outside to unleash one of his infamous full-powered blasts. Days later we hadn't been able to tell the concerned students and other faculty members what we had been arguing about this time, even when we were ignoring and avoiding each other for whatever it was.

The whole thing was ridiculous and would leave us both drained and exhausted. Of course, at the time our arguments seemed both perfectly logical and reasonable. It was afterward that left us feeling guilty. But we both had too much pride and were far too stubborn to apologize, let alone admit that we were wrong. Thankfully, our engagement was never called into question, even when Logan was.

It was in the midst of all that frustration and rage that I missed my period for the first time ever. And, even as a certified doctor who should have _known better_, I put it down to what was going on with Scott and I, and the anxieties that that was creating. Then, one night after we had put our latest conflict on hold in order to crawl into bed in time to be up for a session in the Danger Room the next morning, I lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondering if we had stopped to put a condom on the day before.

We hadn't.

Had we stopped to put a condom on at all that week?

No, again.

The week before?

Nope.

When I realized that my period was late, I jumped out of bed without a word to my fiancé and bolted for the med lab. And, just as I had expected it would, the blue line appeared.

Maybe the universe could be so kind as to offer such a thing to us, when we were on the brink of disintegration. So I had run upstairs to wake Scott, then stopped dead.

How could something like this possibly make anything better? A baby, out of wedlock, made from our temporary (or so I had hoped) hatred of each other.

So I didn't tell him, and instead I went back to bed and laid awake for three nights _thinking._

Then Logan came back, and I think he _knew_. He didn't say anything or imply anything really, but it was all in his eyes. The kiss, too. Though I was sick with worry for Scott and for the professor, and for the kids who were taken and the ones who had escaped, it made me realize something: I was trapped. Forever was a very, very long time.

It wasn't by my own fault or even by Scott's, but it was true. Not wanting to hurt my beloved made me break away from Logan and storm off back to camp all in a huff. Not wanting to hurt Scott had prevented me from kissing Logan during his last stay. _Ethics_ and my own morals had not allowed me to cheat on him like that. What would it do to the professor? To the team? To the students? To myself and Logan and Scott?

My conscious told me that I couldn't be trapped any longer. But leaving Scott now would be so cruel, and again, I couldn't bear to hurt him like that. The baby presented another complication, and I wasn't sure whether to be thankful that I had yet to tell him, or not. But the truth was, I didn't want the baby. But aborting it would have been too cruel to Scott, even if he didn't know about it. Staying with him regardless of how I felt, only to wind up resenting him in the end would have been just as awful.

So what was I to do?

Of course, I couldn't let myself think too hard on that question while I still had a job to do. I had a fiancé and a fatherly figure and children to save. Not to mention villains who undoubtedly had ulterior motives that I had to stay on top of. So I did the X-Men thing and got the job done.

And then, when the opportunity presented itself, I covered up my suicide by doing the hero thing and 'sacrificing myself'. Everyone knows how Scott likes to blame himself for everything, and if I had left him, or simply killed myself by jumping off a bridge, he would never have forgiven himself. I don't think I really would have had the courage to jump, anyway. Jean Grey; not enough courage to take the coward's way out. Oh the irony.

So I did the hero thing, I took the hero's way out. I saved my pride and my dignity when I limped out of the jet under the pretense of saving everyone at my own expense - even though there were countless other things I could have done that wouldn't have resulted in my own demise. I took one last look at what I was leaving behind, said goodbye through the professor because I just couldn't help myself, then I let my body be disintegrated by the water pouring from the crack in the dam. A crack I had had some hand in making.

The moment of agony when the water hit me was overshadowed only by the look of terror, the panic and distress on Scott's beautiful face. And the understanding on Logan's.


End file.
